Erica Cohen Lyons, on a fivev-week family visit to Israel, said she has taken her cue from Israelis, who know how to reach safe places and inform their children in a calm, clear way. / Michele Chabin

by Michele Chabin, Special for USA TODAY

by Michele Chabin, Special for USA TODAY

JERUSALEM - When Erica Cohen Lyons and her husband, Steve, were planning a summer vacation in Israel, coping with a war wasn't on their "to-do" list. But that's what the Hong Kong-based American couple and their three children have been doing since fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza broke out July 8.

When the rockets started falling "we had conversations about leaving early," Lyons said while waiting in a Jerusalem café to pick up her youngest child, 8, from day camp. "Ultimately, we waited to see what would happen." In the end, they decided to stay because they felt reasonably safe and to show solidarity with the Israelis.

"We would leave if we felt in imminent danger and had no way to protect our children," she said.

That's been the prevailing attitude for thousands of predominantly Jewish Americans in Israel this summer. "Most of the tourists" already in Israel "are feeling secure," said Anat Shihor-Aronson, spokesperson for the Israel Ministry of Tourism. "Some are rerouting from the south," which has borne the brunt of the rockets because it is near Gaza, to the generally peaceful north.

Of the 3.5 million visitors who traveled to Israel last year, 623,000 were Americans - the highest number from any one country.

Among those who have altered their itineraries are dozens of American Jewish youth groups touring Israel this summer.

The Jewish Agency for Israel, which currently has 4,200 American Jews age 18 to 30 participating in its short- and long-term programs, said none of its groups has canceled visits because of the fighting.

One program not affiliated with the agency has cut short its visit because of security concerns.

Rabbi Steve Wernitz, CEO of the U.S.-based United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, said his staff decided to reroute visits to venues outside a 25-mile radius of Gaza, where the vast majority of Hamas rockets have fallen.

"We also decided not to go to Tel Aviv because it's had numerous sirens," Wernitz said. "But we've gone to other parts of the country with relative freedom of movement."

So far, just one of the movement's approximately 500 teens in Israel has decided to leave early, Wernitz said.

"Everybody understands the anxiety of parents where all the news from home is negative. Unfortunately, we have prior experience running programs during tense times in Israel, and we do everything reasonably possible to keep the kids safe. They know how to respond in an emergency."

Netaniel Lelental, who is interning at a Jerusalem think tank this summer, said he decided to stay "because as an American and a Jew I feel it's important to experience what Israeli life is like."

Lelental, 20, said he will tap into this experience when he returns to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the fall.

If students make anti-Israel complaints "I will have the real-life experience to support my statements. Now I know what it's like to go to the store, hear an air-raid siren, go to a shelter and then see that life goes on."

Some Americans, including scores of American Jewish leaders, have flown to Israel specifically to help with logistics and show solidarity.

When the rockets starting flying, Davey Smith, team leader and founding director of the Israel Aid Mission, booked a flight from New York.

"I knew that search and rescue teams were needed, and from our past experience working in southern Israel, that we would be faster than the local ambulatory service."

Smith, whose organization has assisted storm victims in Haiti and the Philippines, believes it is "not just a Jewish responsibility but a global responsibility to come to the aid of a democratic country during a war. If Gaza were a friendly nation toward Israel we would help them gladly."